A proposal in Iowa, which still needs to pass in the legislature, would preserve net metering and let utilities recoup costs faster. After years of tussling over net metering rules, Iowa solar advocates and the state’s largest utility finally found common ground recently on one core point: They all wantRead More

Ipsun Solar, a premier solar installer in Northern Virginia, has brought on Alan S. Larsen as senior adviser for governmental and legal affairs. Among his initial endeavors, Larsen will coordinate the company’s effort to advocate for improved solar policy in Virginia. “So much of the progress on energy production andRead More

Looking back at 2019, if I had to pick a pun moniker for the solar industry (and I do), it wasn’t so much a ‘solar-coaster’ as it was a ‘solar derby.’ Established companies, technologies and ideas were all bashing into each other, forming alliances and finding other competitive edges toRead More

The solar industry made South Carolina a priority this year. The state had outdated regulations that were holding back renewable energy demand. In May, state lawmakers passed a bipartisan bill that solved all of these issues. It lifted net metering caps, allowed for solar leases and much more. As partRead More

The Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) voted last month to lower the net metering rates energy companies must pay solar customers. The crusade to lower the value of home solar was led by Entergy, which will be decreasing its per kilowatt payback from 10 cents to 3.5 cents. This articleRead More

Net energy metering (NEM) policies have played a crucial role in making residential solar installations a good investment for homeowners in the United States. However, as installed solar capacity has increased, many utility companies have introduced changes to their NEM programs that reduce the value of distributed solar. Aurora usedRead More

The State of New York’s Public Service Commission (PSC) issued its long-awaited order updating the Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER) tariff, which compensates distributed energy resources, like solar, for the collective environmental and societal benefits they provide to the state’s electrical grid. “New York has set an ambitious goalRead More

Advocates are raising concerns about a proposal from Idaho Power Company that would increase utility bills and uncertainty for many businesses and farmers that want to use solar energy to meet their own electricity needs. The utility’s application to the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, which was filed Friday, seeks toRead More

Maryland and Maine are moving two pieces of legislation through their halls to keep their solar momentum going. Maine kills gross metering You may recall the previous governor of Maine Paul LePage working feverishly to charge solar customers more through a gross metering rate structure. In this setup, the PublicRead More

The National Regulatory Research Institute released a new study of actions by U.S. states to change distributed energy resources rate designs for the customer side of the meter. Review of State Net Energy Metering and Successor Rate Designs is a summary of the activity among state public utility commissions in findingRead More